Empowered in 09

As 2008 faded away, I realized that I was not really excited about the year. It started on a rough note and ended on a rough note.

But, 2009 (I'm determined) will be my best year yet. Why? I'm empowered to be the best I can be and to deliver on all the promises I made to myself over the years that I've yet to keep.

So, what are you going to do to make 2009 your best year yet?

Organic Cotton

I've recently decided to go Organic, right down to the clothes I wear. There was a two-fold reason for doing so: I just finished my memoir and realized that since my eczema had been getting better over the years, I'd began wearing synthetic clothes and sometimes it gets worse when I don't wear 100% cotton. Secondly, I want to leave the earth better than when I came into it. Our future generations deserve better health and a cleaner environment.

So, I've began an online retail store called, Yahna Baby Apparel and that's all I'll sell is organic cotton clothes.

I'm looking forward to this new adventure in my life and I can't wait to find some organic cotton clothes that I can wear with pride, comfort and consciousness.

Color: Hating the Skin You're In

I recently lost my paternal grandmother. She was the last of my living grandparents. As I think back over her life and reflect on a card given to me by one of my co-workers; it's makes me sad. The card wanted me to remember all the wonderful, happy times I'd spent with my grandmother enjoying only the splendor of what great grandmothers bring to their grandchildren.

I wish I could be happy about the relationship that I had with my grandmother. We had a ten year estrangement, until last August 2007, and the years prior to that were not a bed of roses. I really took the time last year to try and understand the essence of my grandmother and her life. She was a hard woman to love and definitely hard to like sometimes.

Grandmothers are supposed to love their grandchildren unconditionally, but my grandmother loved us by degrees: skin color degrees. As I've gotten to know my half-brothers and sisters over the past year, I realize that she inflicted the same color bias on them as well.

There was always a noticeable difference in who her "favorites" were. The lighter and brighter, the better. If you were a fairer complexion, you held her heart; if not, you felt her wrath.

My three sisters and I are perfectly matched: two fair to medium and two medium complexion. My half-brothers and sisters are all medium to dark and as I listened to my younger sister, Omega, recount the way grandma treated them versus how she treated our cousins who are very fair skinned, it brought back all the bad memories.

I use to wonder why grandma disliked darker skin people so much? In so many words, last year, she expressed her disdain for my grandmother who was a dark complexion man. She despised him, so anyone that favored him got the brunt of her abuse.

I forgave my grandmother for all the "water under the bridge last year and her issue made me take a hard look at my life. There are times when we internalize prejudice without even knowing it.

Are you hue prejudiced? Have you unknowingly adopted prejudice ways against your own race or maybe even another race?

I love all shades of people but who am I most attracted to: fairer skin men. Does this mean that my grandmother's sickness has rubbed off on me? NO! I've dated many spectrum of the rainbow, without and within my nationality, and find that each person has special qualities that I like.

Think about your prejudices and work hard to remove them, if they exist.

Write Until Your Heart's Content

I began writing when I was five. I wrote my first full-length novelette when I was eleven and over the years I have written numerous short stories, poems and mini novels. But, my crowning achievement is a memoir about my struggles growing up with eczema, a disease of the skin.

It has taken me two years to write this memoir but through all the ups and downs, tears and sorrow brought on by looking back; I am glad I decided to write this book.

Nothing is more rewarding than looking into your past to get a clearer picture of your present and future.

Love Always

There are times in all our lives when we think no one will ever love us. Over the past two weeks, my faith in love has been renewed. There is someone in God's huge world that will love each and everyone of us. There's a "special" someone waiting for us all.

On a recent trip to San Diego, I met the most phenomenal couple that re-established my hope and trust in LOVE. They were first time participants at the National Eczema Association conference and from the moment I introduced myself, we became fast friends.

I was honored to learn of the almost ten year marriage and even more honored to witness the unconditional love and tender moments of affection exchanged between the two.

I had come to believe that no one could love me unconditionally because of my eczema and the scars that still remain. The right person will.

First, I love myself unconditionally and second I accept God's time frame for love for me. By loving myself, I will be more prepared when the love of my life shows up. I struggle sometimes with looking into the mirror because I don't like the body that I'm currently in. So, this next week I've rededicated myself to loosing the unwanted weight and sculpting my body into the chiseled force that use to be.

It's hard being alone but it's harder forcing an issue that will turn out disastrously, so as the old saying goes, "patience is a virtue." Self-love is a blessing. And I love myself once again. I realize when my love for self begins to wain, I abuse my body with unhealthy food, missed workouts at the gym and I adapt a dangerous sedentary lifestyle that leads to depression and no motivation.

Never give up hope on love, never give up really LOVING yourself and never give up treating your body as the temple that it is, because body dysmorphia and distortion are real illnesses and one has to be very aware or the old habits will creep back in and wreck havoc.

Do you "Love Always?"

Embracing the Battle Scars

I'm happy today! Are you? Except for a touch of contact dermatitis on my face that is itching me to madness, I'm still happy. My skin is doing well despite the horrid humidity in St. Louis right now and the only extreme dry issues I'm having are with my scalp and hair.

As mentioned in my previous entry, I experience a brief lapse of jealousy when thinking of having beautiful, flawless skin like so many people I see. We are a nation, country, a world of disease and abnormalities in some fashion because not one of us is perfect. Even when outward appearances lead others to believe we are.

So, as a small step over the past two years I have learned how to embrace my eczema battle scars and love "the skin I'm in" because no one possesses the same "reverse" freckles that I do and I love my "Uniqueness."

Vitiligo, aka "reverse freckles" became a constant in my life when I turned eleven but I no longer deplore his presence. I make him a part of me because he is......

UniquelyME

Find Your Groove

Thursday, July 2, while driving to work at 6 am, I expected this day to be just as mundane as the others where nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary ever happens. Just as I was about to pass the same old scenery for the millionth time, I saw a young man in his early twenties dressed in a Cardinals t-shirt, jeans and sporting a fresh new style of dread locks absolutely rocking out to a song on his IPOD.

He was singing, dancing and thoroughly enjoying waiting on the bus line at approximately 6:20 in the morning. At that moment, he could have cared less when the bus was to arrive to take him to his destination. He was happy and didn't care if anyone knew it. I applauded his BOLDNESS. I also got a big chuckle out of his vocal styling and latest dance moves.

I just want him to know that he put a BIG smile on my face that morning Mr. Get Your Groove on at the Bus Stop Man! You will never know how you made my day!

Thank you.

Now, the question to each of us: who's day have we made with our Bold moves? Are we too concerned with what others will think of us to truly live our lives with happiness and carefree abandon? Show off those scarred arms, legs, faces, hands and feet because no body is perfect!

Find your Groove and Dance, Dance, Dance.